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Letian Zhang

Letian (LT) Zhang is an assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit. He teaches the Leadership course in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Zhang studies organizational theory and strategy. His research is centered on social inequalities and status hierarchies, and he is particularly interested in the influence of status cues in markets. Professor Zhang's research has explored organizational dynamics in financial markets, sports, entrepreneurship, Chinese labor markets, and other empirical settings. He has published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Science, and in peer-reviewed mathematics journals.

Professor Zhang earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University and a B.S. in mathematics from Stanford University, where he researched number theory. He is from Hangzhou, China.

Letian (LT) Zhang is an assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit. He teaches the Leadership course in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Zhang studies organizational theory and strategy. His research is centered on social inequalities and status hierarchies, and he is particularly interested in the influence of status cues in markets. Professor Zhang's research has explored organizational dynamics in financial markets, sports, entrepreneurship, Chinese labor markets, and other empirical settings. He has published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Science, and in peer-reviewed mathematics journals.

Professor Zhang earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University and a B.S. in mathematics from Stanford University, where he researched number theory. He is from Hangzhou, China.

How does a firm’s gender diversity affect its performance? Existing work has shown conflicting evidence—some finding a positive effect of gender diversity while others finding a null or a negative effect. However, most of the existing work has focused on a single industry or country and has not accounted for possible variation across social contexts. This paper advances an institutional framework and predicts that gender diversity’s effect on performance is determined by both its normative and regulatory acceptance in the broader institutional environment. Using a unique longitudinal sample of 1,069 leading public firms in 35 countries and 24 industries, I find that the effect of gender diversity on performance varies significantly across countries and industries due to differences in institutional contexts. The more gender diversity has been normatively accepted in a country or industry, the more it benefits a firm’s market valuation and revenue. These findings demonstrate the importance of the broader social contexts in shaping the consequences of gender diversity.

There is strong evidence of racial bias in organizations but little understanding of how it changes with repeated interaction. This study proposes that repeated interaction has the potential to reduce racial bias, but its moderating effects are limited to the treatment of individuals rather than of entire racial groups. Using data from 2,360 National Basketball Association (NBA) players and 163 coaches from 1955 to 2000, I find that players receive more playing time under coaches of the same race, even though there is no difference in their performance. This racial bias is greatly reduced, however, as the player and the coach spend more time on the same team, suggesting that repeated interaction minimizes coaches’ biases toward their players. But it does not reduce coaches’ racial biases in general. Even after years of coaching other-race players, coaches still exhibit the same levels of racial bias as they did upon first entering the league. These results suggest that repeated workplace interaction is effective in reducing racial bias toward individuals but not toward groups, making an important contribution to the literature on organizational inequality.

Although it is well known that organizational and team performance influences strategic decision-making, little is known about its impact on ascriptive inequality. This study proposes a performance effect on racial bias: higher team performance reduces managers’ performance pressure and, therefore, leads to more managerial bias in the subsequent round. I find strong evidence for this proposition using a fine-grained dataset from the National Basketball Association. In this highly competitive industry, team performance is positively associated with coaches’ subsequent exercise of racial bias: players experience more favorable treatment from same-race coaches after their teams have won more games. This study demonstrates an important relationship between performance feedback and racial bias and suggests that even in highly competitive industries, managerial bias may be prevalent in high-performing teams and organizations.